The high court judge dismissed two other claims brought in the case.
Photograph: Alamy

Two severely disabled men experienced unlawful discrimination when their benefits were significantly reduced after moving on to the government’s controversial universal credit scheme, the high court has declared.

The ruling is a blow to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its rollout of the new payments system. Both individuals were left unable to meet many of their basic needs, the court had been told.

Delivering the judgment, Mr Justice Lewis said: “There appears to have been no consideration of the desirability or justification for requiring [the men] to assume the entirety of the difference between income-related benefits under the former system and universal credit when their housing circumstances change and it is an appropriate moment to transfer them to universal credit.

“That is all the more striking given the government’s own statements over a number of years that such persons may need assistance and that there was a need to define with precision the circumstances in which they would not receive such assistance.

“The implementing arrangements do at present give rise to unlawful discrimination [contrary to the European convention on human rights].”

The claimants, identified only as TP and AR, had previously been in receipt of the severe disability premium (SDP) and the enhanced disability premium (EDP), which were specifically aimed at meeting the additional care needs of severely disabled people living alone with no carer.

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TP is a Cambridge graduate who worked in the financial sector in the City of London and abroad. In 2016 he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and Castleman disease.

When he became sick, he moved temporarily from London to his parents’ home in Dorset, but after a few months he returned to the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, a universal credit full-service area, on the advice of his clinicians in order to access specialist healthcare.

AR, who is 36, has severe mental health problems. In 2017 he moved from Middlesbrough to Hartlepool, a universal credit full-service area, because he could no longer afford the property he was living in, owing to the imposition of the bedroom tax.

Both men were required to make a claim for universal credit, as they had moved into local authority areas where the controversial benefit was being rolled out. They said they were advised by DWP staff that their benefit entitlement would not change. However, they experienced a monthly income drop of £178 under universal credit.

Tessa Gregory, a solicitor at the London law firm Leigh Day who represented the men, said: “Nothing about either of the claimants’ disability or care needs changed, they were simply unfortunate enough to need to move local authorities into a universal credit full-service area.

“The government needs to halt the rollout and completely overhaul the system to meet peoples’ needs, not condemn them to destitution. If this doesn’t happen, further legal challenges will inevitably follow.”

Last week Esther McVey, the work and pensions secretary, committed the government to ensuring that no severely disabled person in receipt of the SDP would be made to move on to universal credit until transitional protection was in place. She also promised compensation.

TP said: “To add to the stress of being seriously ill and undergoing very arduous treatments that have left me unable to work, I have had to take time off convalescing to fight in the courts for subsistence-level benefits. In being compelled to migrate to universal credit, where I lost the severe disability premium, I was deprived of a key mainstay of support for a disabled person living alone with no carer. The financial strain from the cutting of the SDP has made it so much harder for me to cope, as it has been an additional daily stress. It has been detrimental to my health.”

AR said: “I know it is a time of austerity, but I do not understand why the government are trying to penny-pinch with what is a relatively small and very vulnerable group – namely, severely disabled people without a carer. I thought we lived in a society where as a vulnerable group we would be protected, not unlawfully discriminated against.”

The men brought the case against the legality of the benefit cuts on three grounds. First, that the DWP breached the Equality Act 2010 in failing to fully consider the impact of removing premiums on severely disabled people. Second, that the 2013 benefit regulations discriminate against severely disabled people living alone with no carer. Third, that the implementation of universal credit and the absence of “top-up” payments for this vulnerable group in comparison to others constitute discrimination contrary to the European convention on human rights.

They lost the first two claims, but won on their third legal argument.

A DWP spokeswoman said: “We will be applying to appeal on the one point the court found against the department.

“This government is committed to ensuring a strong system of support is in place for vulnerable people who are unable to work.

“Last week, the secretary of state announced that we will be providing greater support for severely disabled people as they move on to universal credit. And we have gone even further, by providing an additional payment to those who have already moved on to the benefit.”